Children Adolescent Mental Health Service

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Barnsley are provided by a range of agencies.

Many of the services are provided by the Child and Adolescent Unit, which is a multi-agency team based in New Street Clinic in the centre of Barnsley. The team, which includes consultant child and adolescent psychiatrists, nurses, play therapist and social workers, also works with children and families at a variety of community clinics at Hoyland, Penistone, Goldthorpe, Stairfoot and Athersley.

The Child and Adolescent Unit accepts referrals on all children up to the age of 16 or up until a child is in Year 11 at full time school. If a child is 16 and is involved in ongoing work with a member of the Child and Adolescent Team then this work will be continued until it is appropriate for this to terminate. If a referral is received on a young person who is 17 or over this is dealt with by a range of adult services.

Referrals are accepted on any child or young person who lives within Barnsley or who is registered with a Barnsley GP. Referrals are accepted from GPs, social care services, other doctors (eg paediatricians), education psychologists, education welfare officers, health visitors, school nurses, other health professionals and voluntary agencies such as The Barn.

The type of issues and problems that are referred to the Child and Adolescent Unit are self harm, depression, phobias, sleep difficulties, eating difficulties, behaviour problems, attention deficit problems and problems related to autistic spectrum disorders. This list of referrals is not exhaustive and each referral is considered by the multi-agency team to determine whether it is appropriate for this service to offer an appointment to the child and family.  

Other services to support families are offered from agencies such as NSPCC, Therapeutic Service and Schools Counselling Service, Barnardo's Family Centre and Barnardo's Early Intervention Service. On occasion referrals that do come into Child and Adolescent Unit are referred on to other service providers such as Barnardo's or NSPCC who maybe able to offer more appropriate help.

Children and families are seen for an initial assessment and are then offered further appointments either for the child on their own or for the child and family. The child and family may be seen by any of the professionals who work in the team depending on the assessed need. A child may be offered play therapy or individual work from a worker whilst the parents are offered their own time with another worker in the team.

There is no set time for the number of times the child and family may be seen. This very much depends on the nature of the problem and the work that is being carried out with the family. The team works in an open way with children and families and discusses the work that is involved. Only the doctors in the team are able to prescribe any medication for children if this is felt to be necessary.

There is also a small team of psychologists who are available to work with children. A new service is currently being launched and developed in new premises.

There are four primary mental health workers who will have three main roles:

• training,
• consultancy, and
• direct work with children and their families.

This team will take referrals that would otherwise go to the Child and Adolescent Unit in New Street. Another important service is tha Parenting Programme Project. The Project has a co-ordinator and two parenting group workers.

Referral process

The Child and Adolescent Unit receive written referrals which are considered at a weekly team meeting. At the weekly team meeting each referral is given a priority depending on the urgency of the problem. At this point referrals are put on a main waiting list. If the problem is very urgent an immediate appointment may be offered. The number of referrals received means that the team does operate a waiting list policy where children may wait between 5 to 15 weeks for an initial appointment.

When a child is nearing the top of the waiting list a letter is sent out to the family to ask if they still wish to have an appointment. The letter asks the parents or carers to ring or write to the team to confirm they wish to have an appointment. If no confirmation is received by a specific date then the referral is closed at this point. If the parent or carer does indicate that they want an appointment, an appointment letter is sent out with date and place for the appointment. An initial appointment will last for between 1 and 1½ hours when full details from parents or carers are requested. After this initial appointment the plans for future appointments will be discussed with the child and the family as appropriate. A letter is sent to the referrers after the initial assessment. After the initial assessment families may be offered a range of treatments involving either

• family therapy - this is where the whole family have to attend an appointment to discuss the problems.
• parenting work - Barnsley has a range of parenting support offered to parents of children of all ages.

Parenting support groups are run throughout Barnsley by a range of professionals and members of the team are able to discuss with parents how this support may be of help to them and their child. 

Location/opening times

The Child and Adolescent Unit is based at New Street Clinic, New Street, Barnsley.
The opening hours are 9.00 - 5.00 Monday to Friday.
Telephone: 01226 777908

Out of hours support

There is no out of hours service for routine appointments. An out of hours service is provided for children and young people who self harm or take overdoses through Barnsley District General Hospital where they will be seen by the oncall Doctor and admitted for futher observation and or treatment.

Useful contacts

Anne Lewis
Head of Disability and Health Related Services
Directorate for Children, Young People and Families
Telephone: 01226 772563

Janet Foster
Clincial Nurse Manager
Telephone: 01226 777908